The art of droplet formation is of critical importance in many industries. For example, droplets are formed in spray towers, absorption towers, and combustors. Some of these cases prefer uniform size droplets. Many droplet formation systems produce a broad range of size. The ability to make droplets of even size, consistently, is needed.
“Single Droplet Combustion of Biomass Pyrolysis Oils,” a study by Sandia National Laboratories and published in Energy & Fuels, 1994, 8, 1131-1142 by Green, et al., teaches droplet generators utilizing capillary tubes fed by syringe pumps to produce controllably-sized and distributed droplets, torn away from the capillary tube by the drag force of a coaxial gas flow. The present disclosure differs in that syringe pumps and delicate capillary tubes are not required, a cooling jacket was required, and no protrusions were used. This disclosure is pertinent and may benefit from the methods disclosed herein and is hereby incorporated for reference in its entirety for all that it teaches.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,133,044, to van den Engh teaches a high speed flow cytometer droplet formation system and method. The cytometer utilizes an oscillator or piezoelectric crystal unidirectionally coupled to the sheath fluid to form droplets from the fluid jet. The present disclosure differs from this disclosure in that droplet formation requires an oscillator or piezoelectric crystal to form droplets dispensed from a nozzle. This disclosure is pertinent and may benefit from the methods disclosed herein and is hereby incorporated for reference in its entirety for all that it teaches.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,962,606, to Williams, et al., teaches control of solution catalyst droplet size with an effervescent spray nozzle. The effervescent spray nozzle produces fine catalyst droplet dispersion, resulting in small spherical primary particles and small agglomerates. The present disclosure differs from this disclosure in that a nozzle is used for droplet formation, the droplets are not of consistent size or produced in an controllably-timed manner. This disclosure is pertinent and may benefit from the methods disclosed herein and is hereby incorporated for reference in its entirety for all that it teaches.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,666,673A, to Timm, teaches an apparatus for preparing large quantities of uniform drop size. The apparatus produces spheroidal polymer beads by a combination of uniform openings and a vibratory exciter parallel to the axis of the monomer jet. The present disclosure differs from this disclosure in that the openings do not have a protrusion, and a vibratory exciter is required. This disclosure is pertinent and may benefit from the methods disclosed herein and is hereby incorporated for reference in its entirety for all that it teaches.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,464,886, to Gañan-Cálvo, teaches a device and method for creating spherical particles of uniform size. A stream of gas is forced through a liquid held under pressure in a pressure chamber, then exits with the liquid out of an orifice, creating a monodispersion of bubbles of substantially uniform size. The system can also produce bubbles. The present disclosure differs from this disclosure in that a gas stream is required to make the spherical particles, an orifice is required, and the liquid spheres produced are aerosols, not drops. This disclosure is pertinent and may benefit from the methods disclosed herein and is hereby incorporated for reference in its entirety for all that it teaches.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,029,896, to Self, et al., teaches a method of drop size modulation with extended transition time waveform. The waveform used allows the droplet volume dispensed from a demand mode inkjet type device to be increased and selected according to certain parameters. The present disclosure differs from this disclosure in that the droplets are formed through an orifice and are sized by a waveform produced by a piezoelectric or similar. This disclosure is pertinent and may benefit from the methods disclosed herein and is hereby incorporated for reference in its entirety for all that it teaches.